


Belonging

by AnyaYanko



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25547068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnyaYanko/pseuds/AnyaYanko
Summary: Albus doesn’t like it when Harry comes home smelling of other men.He knows it’s none of his business. Harry is no longer his student, no longer a child, and he is not his father. They are just two friends, living together in Hogsmede, for convenience.Still, it bothers him.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore/Harry Potter
Comments: 13
Kudos: 70





	Belonging

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ashrionest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashrionest/gifts).



> A quick story from Ashrionest’s prompt. No smut. Nice and clean, though there is reference to casual sex. Fun to try something different.

He hates it when Harry comes home smelling of strangers. His own scent is so sweet and familiar to Albus. Freshly-baked gingerbread and hot chocolate. It makes him think, foolishly, of home. Though this, itself, is a relatively new concept. What home has he known beside Hogwarts? His parent’s farm was never truly his, though he grew up there and became the man he is today. The house and Harry now share in Hogsmede is Albus’s very first home and he wants nothing more than to shut the door to the world and retreat away, to comfort and pleasure. 

The smell of other men’s sweat and cigarette smoke (and worse) on Harry’s skin feels like a corruption. As startling and wrong as an intruder in one’s bedroom. Albus wants to scrub him clean. Toss him in the bath like a naughty puppy that has run out into the road and wash away all the filth and stink. He wants to pluck Harry out, clean and shining, and bury his face in his soft wet hair. His darling one. His baby. 

Of course, he has no claim to Harry’s body. It is absurd to be possessive. Harry is not his pet to play with or cage against escape. Nor is he a rare, precious artefact to be stored away amongst Albus’s other treasures, to be enjoyed by him and him alone. His is his own man, free to come and go as he pleases. To see whomever he chooses and ... well, to do whatever he wishes with his own tender little body. 

Even though it kills Albus to see it.

Like a parent discovering bruises on the body of their child and realising that someone has hurt them while their back was turned. The fear, the anger, and the guilt. For Albus should have been there. Should have protected him. It is no good telling himself, over and over, that there is nothing really wrong with what Harry is doing. That, even if it is ... misguided, it his choice to behave as he does. To go out, night after night, and take up with strangers in the dark. In his soul, Albus feels it is wrong and that these men are hurting Harry. Or Harry is hurting himself. 

‘You shouldn’t - ‘ he protests, in bursts. ‘Not so late. With men you don’t know. Not like that. If you’ve been drinking - ‘ 

But Harry brushes him off like an indifferent teenager in no mood for a lecture. Although, Harry is all of twenty-five years now. No longer a teenager, Albus has to remind himself. No longer a boy, but a fully-grown man. Except, he is still young. So very young. He doesn’t know how cruel the world can be. How bitter love - or love affairs - can become. In time, pleasant memories can turn bad. Calcify in the pit of the stomach. A heavy stone to carry.

‘You might regret what you do now later,’ he warns. ‘It is not always ... good, when you remember.’ 

Harry sighs heavily, as if he were the old man. ‘What’s one more bad memory, amongst the rest?’ He quips. ‘Besides, I don’t regret it. Any of it. I’m just out having fun. Trying to living in the moment. It’s not a big deal.’ 

Albus disagrees, though he has not the words to do it. This is strange, as he always been a master of words. He used some anyway. They spill out of his mouth, one after another, but they are not the right words. They fall away into the silence, without leaving any trace. Gone, as soon as they are spoken, into oblivion. 

Harry is not listening to him. He walks into the kitchen to get himself a drink. Not more alcohol, thank the Gods, just a cool glass of water. He drinks deep - glug, gulg - until the glass is empty again, and then refills it. He is so thirsty tonight. His body sucked dry from his encounter. His sweat drained by heat and pressure. He is desperate to fill the gaping hole within him. 

‘They can’t give you what you want,’ Albus says suddenly, surprising himself. He did not mean to say that. ‘Those men,’ he clarifies clumsily. ‘They can’t make you happy.’ 

Harry sets down his glass and looked at him with eyes clear as water. 

‘But they do,’ he insists. ‘Sometimes more than once in a single night.’ His face splits into a smile, slimy and drunken. Cocky, like his father, and full of bravado. 

‘You know what I mean,’ Albus says fiercely. ‘Harry, my dear - ‘ he stops himself. ‘I just want to see you happy. Truly happy. With someone that really cares for you.’ He puts all his weight into the words. ‘You deserve to be loved.’ 

He does. More than anyone Albus has ever known. More importantly, he’s worthy of being loved. Capable of giving love in the most natural and uncomplicated way. He is still, beneath it all, the sweet boy that Albus took under his wing all those years ago. The most honest and earnest of all his students. He has never met another so caring and good. No one even comes close. 

He wishes he were more like Harry. Not the weak, fearful old man that he has become, with a past littered with shameful betrayals and mistakes. 

No, Harry is pure. He ought to have a love affair out a fairytale. A tall, blonde prince who will devote himself to Harry for the rest of his days. A true match for a man who is such a warm, loyal companion. 

‘Albus!’ Harry hisses, teeth flashing with irritation. ‘Why do you do that? All that naive, idealistic bullshit!’ He must be very drunk. He only swears like that when he’s drunk. ‘You must know that for me ... and for you ... there are limited options.’ 

His voice quiets, cracking with pain. 

‘I did love someone once - ‘ A shock for Albus. He never suspected such a thing. ‘I ... I still love him.’ His eyes slid away. ‘But ... He didn’t want me, like that.’ 

The old familiar story that every gay man has to tell. The hopeless love of a heterosexual friend. Their soul-mate, perhaps, if only things had been different. But he cannot think who the object of Harry’s affections might be. Ron Weasley, perhaps, but no ... surely not? There has been any hint of attraction between the boys. They are more like brothers than anything else.

‘There will be someone else for you,’ he advises solemnly. Fortune-cookie talk. He thoroughly deserves the look of contempt that Harry throws him. 

‘You don’t know that,’ he sneers. ‘It’s not likely. Anyway, I can’t just sit around waiting for him to ride up on a white horse - or a white broomstick. Though, that’s even more unlikely, isn’t it? There aren’t that many gay wizards.’ 

He huffs again, more angrily this time. 

‘I have needs, you know. I can’t be like you. I don’t want to live like a monk.’

Albus shivered. ‘I know I’m not ... the best example.’ With his years and years of celibacy, safely ensconced within walls of crumbling books. ‘You’re not like me, though. You could have so much more.’ 

Harry scoffed. ‘I have enough. More than enough.’ He narrows his eyes at Albus. Folds his arms across his chest. ‘I don’t want your advice about this, _Professor_. It’s none of your business.’ 

Another painful truth, icicle-sharp, stabbing him in his gut. He looks down at his hands, paper-thin skin covered in creases. Crumpled, as if someone tried to scrunch him up and throw him away. He is wasting away in old age. He is waste.

‘I know I ... I don’t ... ‘ He breathes deep. ‘I just care about you, Harry. I want you to be happy.’ He doesn’t want him to come home smelling of other men. 

Harry is angry and indignant, eyes bright and hair wild. He is so young and handsome. Bright, and brilliant and burning with energy. Something squirms inside Albus’s brain, a realisation that steadily crystallised in the cool kitchen. 

_Mine. Mine. Mine. No one else’s. My precious. My darling ..._

He recoils from the thoughts. Tries to stamp them down. _No, no no. Wrong. That’s wrong. Do. Not. Touch_. He can’t deny it though. He’s come to adore him. Deeply, physically. He wants to love him as his entire nature dictates. Even the dark, sly parts that have languished starving in the basement of his soul for nearly a century. 

‘I love you, Harry,’ the words tumbled out from trembling lips. ‘I love you so much.’ 

Harry’s eyes close. Despair. ‘I know you do,’ he says slowly. ‘Like - like a father. But I need something more than that. Something different.’ He slams his hand down on the marble countertop. ‘Damn it, Albus! Don’t you see that?!’ 

Albus’s head is reeling. He feels drunk, as if he is the one who has been out drinking all night. That hot, insistent voice is still chanting inside him, as regular as a heartbeat. Mine. Mine. Mine. Drumming bloody fists on the inside of his ribcage, demanding to be heard. 

‘Not like a father,’ he says hoarsely. ‘Not just like a father.’ He lets all his pain flow into his eyes, liquid and blue. ‘I love you Harry. Completely. That’s why I - I can’t bear to see - like this, with other men.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry. I know I have no right. Perhaps, perhaps we shouldn’t live together.’

Harry’s face is white with shock. His mouth hanging open. He would never have guessed. Never have expected that his old friend, his mentor, his father-figure could actually _fancy_ him. Want him, just like the grubby men who put their grubby hands all over him, in the back of bars and cars and alleyways. He must be appalled. 

‘I didn’t mean it to happen,’ Albus protests weakly. So weak, so pathetic. ‘I have always cared for you. When you were my student. My friend. I never looked at you, like that, I swear. It’s only now, living together.‘

Everything has been different since they decided to come together in Honeysuckle cottage. Neither of them had it as their destination. Albus, for one, had expected to live at Hogwarts for the rest of his life, as so many headmasters did. Harry had his Godfather’s house, which, although dark and gloomy, was well-situated in London. But then Harry sold his place and went abroad for two years and when he came back there was a cottage available in Hogsmede, where houses rarely came up for sale. 

It was large and expensive and he invited Albus to come with him and view it. He only wanted his advice and his company. They had lunch afterwards and talked it over. Both, bursting with enthusiasm about the beautiful little house. They had both loved it, truly, unexpectedly and Harry had suggested, ‘Why not take it together?’ It would be be nicer. Not to mention, more affordable. 

‘I don’t have any single friends to share with,’ he confided grimly. ‘Ron and Hermione don’t need a room-mate.’ 

And Albus had said, ‘Yes. Why not?’ It has seemed like a brilliant idea. They would be two good friends, one old and one young, caring for each other. Keeping each other company. 

The difficulties had only become apparent in time, as Harry went out late and came back early. Incidents that Albus had not anticipated with strangers in his bathroom. Hairless young men with bleach blonde hair and tattoos. 

He had put his foot down, like a stern patriarch. No more boys in the house. No more half-naked paramours. Harry had shrugged, amused by Albus’s squeamishness, and agreed. No more boys in the house. But he still went out and out and out, and Albus still saw them in his mind. The unwanted intruders.

‘I know you could never feel that way about me,’ he says resignedly. ‘I never, ever had any expectations.’ It was just that love grew, against all obstacles, like a weed on a mountainside. Pushing its way through the rocks.

He had watched Harry eating his breakfast, wiping the jam from his lips. Running around in just a towel. His young marble body on show. Laughing with him hysterically, late in the night. Two intimate friends. A miss-matched _December-January_ pair, one old and white and one young and dark, and yet they fit well. They moved over one another smoothly like well-oiled gears.

‘Please, don’t hate me.’

Harry meets his gaze with eyes just as liquid. ‘Hate you?’ He repeats hoarsely. ‘Albus, I’ve loved you since I was fifteen years old.’ 

The world comes crashing down around him.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ A whisper. ‘You - you can’t of.’ 

Harry smiles. ‘You would’ve just called it a crush. I knew you would never think of me like that with all those years between us.’ He takes a step forward. ‘But now ... oh, Albus. You’re all I’ve ever wanted. Will you have me?’ 

His hands are there, scrabbling at his robes. Deft fingers plucking at the silk and satin, nails catching on the little embroidered stars and planets. 

‘Have me. Have me. Please.’

And he is weak. So weak to Harry. His soul aching, screaming out for him. His arms move without his permission, encircling the young man. Pulling him close. And kissing him. Kissing him. _Kissing him._

He tastes of fire whisky and strangers, so Albus kisses him hard to get the taste out. Go deep, where traces of the fresh, minty morning boy are. The boy that laughed with him, on his way out, teeth flashing and tongue clicking. His love. His beloved. His Harry. 

His own. 


End file.
